I know this is highly random, but ever since I read the email Sree sent out via SAJA, I’ve been curious about “her”, too. That and I truly believe that every brown person in Amreeka is two degrees apart:
You know your wife indulges your South Asia obsessions when she calls you from a cab to alert you to a pretty desi woman on Broadway. A pretty, very tall desi woman – over 15 feet tall, actually. See the photos below to see who my wife called me about (it’s a billboard for Microsoft’s Office 2007 on Broadway between 50th and 49th Street in Manhattan, near Times Square). Now, let’s test the “all desis know each other” theory and see if one of you can identify this model. [SAJAforum]
Bigger picture of our mystery model after the jump. Click to enlarge both images. Or not.
Anyone know who this lovely is? Has she popped up elsewhere? Can we have a thread that doesn’t devolve in to retarded commentary regarding weight and skin color? PLEASE?
If you have to wax immature and vicious, aim that shit at Office 2007, which has brought me (and everyone else in my office) nothing but pain. Soooo not intuitive…
this lady is beautiful but you dont have to say nething against VS models..Tyra and Giselle are def NOT underfed…I am hurt 🙁
Obviously, personal taste is personal taste, but can I just say MY GOD the media has really warped what we find as attractive these days. I think people have spent way too much time staring at airbrushed photos of tanorexic starlets and not enough time walking around in the real world. The reason she looks “average” to some might be because SHE ACTUALLY LOOKS HUMAN. She’s a pretty girl AND she looks like someone you might actually bump into on the subway.
//Rupa steps down off soapbox
i don’t know the girl.. but every brownie is separated by 1.5 degrees, not two..
and
word. rupa, can i join you on your soap box, or is the place next to you taken?
How is that socially possible?
everyone is related by some blood relation or another.
and if you want to get seriously technical about it, consider it a joke.
(off soap box, ducking with rupa).
$20 bucks says she is Bengali. She has that look.
You guys, that dress might look ok, but that sweater makes the whole look undeniably FUG.
Also, I am ROFLMAO thinking that Windows 97 will make someone’s day so great that walking crosstown to the office will be SUCH a joy. “YAY! I get to go to work and sit in a cubefarm at a workstation loaded with Windows 97. Could life get any better!!!???”
I agree; with that dress a 3/4-sleeve jacket might have looked more chic but perhaps fug makes her more realistic. Either that or Microsoft’s photo sylist is my grandma. And I am totally with you on the ridiculousness of the advertising — I love that faraway dreamy look in her eye thinking about how Windows 07 will make all her wishes come true.
I should get a billboard for rockin’ Windows 98 in ’07 Howzat Billy Gates?
The whole state-based beauty system really puts me off. I don’t understand the logistics of it. I’ve seen Gujarati girls who are prettier than Punjabi girls and vice versa. In fact, I’m a mix of individuals from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Ujjain, and Gujarat and I’ve gotten mistaken for everything from Bengali to Punjabi to Sri Lankan (as opposed to the places I’m actually “from”). The ONE thing I hear more often than not at the once-in-a-blue moon Indian event I attend is the whole “Muslim girls are prettier than Hindu girls.” Man, if religion was a beauty cream….
Anyway, I agree with Rupa and chick pea, she is one classy looking real lady remains on soap box.
Thanks JoaT for the tip on the dress! not that Tahari is in my spring budget…
As for the sweater, anybody who’s worked in any midtown office knows they break the thermostat off at 58 degrees F when they kick on the AC, so every woman in the joint, unless suffering hot flashes, will have a sweater or wrap at her desk. 🙂
ps: is it dating myself that I think of Madonna and not Eve, when I hear “who’s that girl?”
Nobody is disparaging anyone else here. As a half-Bungu myself, I was just rooting for her to be another Bungu. btw i think she is very pretty.
Two non-tech ads that come to mind:
AETNA billboard featuring smiley desi doc somewhere around exit 12 on NJ Turnpike SECRET magazine ad featuring desi mom and her two daughters (her secret? She has a favorite daughter…)
Go Rupa. I’m with you. This isn’t about her being attractive or unattracive but sort of cool that she’s the average woman in NYC on a bill board ad and she happens to be brown. That is what the kudos is about. I think it’s utther bullshit that people feel the need to point out she’s average. What is the point??
When I wrote this, I was referencing the Madonna “version”; I loved that song. Darling DD, at least you knew of both tracks–I wasn’t even aware that Eve had a song with that title.
DD,
absolutely..that rule is not restricted to women. Right now it is so cold in here that, as Joey puts it succinctly, “my nipples could cut glass”.
Yes desidancer;) I think the lady on the billboard is really cute.
Oh yeah there was a Blue Cross ad a few years ago that had a desi family and their grandma iceskating.
OH yeah and DD the sweater or wrap is a must. You’d have to be cold blooded to not have to wear a sweater in the office. Secondly that sweater looks like any average wrap someone throws on themselves during this insane weather when it’s neither warm nor winter coat weather and you need a sweater. Well today you needed gloves but that’s a different story. There is absolutely nothing out of place about the sweater. It lookes like it could be from Banana or Limited.
And its idiotic because… u don’t get it? Maybe the name should give you a clue. I was trying to say that the assumption here need not be true – ie, she need not be south asian. I have encountered so many south americans who look very Indian (to desi eyes, that is) and found them to be native spanish speakers.
And wth is “anglo trollery” and how is it different from regular trollery?
I think people have a tendency to seize upon the familiar and therefore assume that someone is like them. For example, other desis and white people always seem to know I’m Indian, but South/Central Americans often speak to me in Spanish assuming I’m a native Spanish speaker. I recently had a patient who was quite obviously shocked when I said I didn’t speak Spanish–I understand enough that I knew when I left the room to get an interpreter, he and his wife were having a discussion about how it was possible I didn’t speak Spanish. This happens repeatedly despite the fact that I think I look pretty unmistakably Indian. It also happens to my husband who doesn’t look anything like me, but looks sort of Mediterranean. Similarly I was convinced for a while that Jai Rodriguez from Queer Eye and Nelly Furtado were both half Indian, and I asked my husband if he was half Indian when I first met him (he’s not). So the explanation I’ve come up with is that people want other people to be like them, or they see primarily those features that are familiar to them.
Oh, and I agree with those who think the sweater is bleh. It’s a rare cardigan that doesn’t look matronly.
I really like that! My mom has this persistent cracked-out thought that George Clooney is half-Indian and I call it wishful-thinking. I get the same thing — people want to talk to me in Spanish although I think I look unmistakeably Indian. I’ve also gotten Syrian, Greek, Italian, Brazilian, Persian and Moroccan. We do like to seek out the familiar in others, I guess. It is super-exciting to discover you have something in common with someone so I guess it’s worth asking, especially in a society where you’re a minority – doesn’t bother me at all. A Greek patient I had on my subI kept insisting I was Greek until I told him I was Indian-American, at which point he told me that of everyone he’d ever met, I was the only one who had “a right to be here.” I had no idea what he was talking about (I get a lot of really dumb comments from people so my general reaction is to smile and nod) until later I figured out he probably thought I meant “Native American.”
we need a SM banner with all the bloggers on it.. now that is some real macaca-soft action.
Maybe Clooney is Melungeon
My mother to this day insists that her tailor from India was the spitting image of Clooney. She only refers to him as Tailor, much to my amusement! As for the lady in the billboard – she does appeal to a more curvy south asian asthetic, but that does not necessarily make her a beauty in the eye of every beholder (not that that’s possible). I, too, prefer ‘real’ women (hey, Ashwariya has back rolls and she’s still hot), but I’m waiting for not just the desi next door to have this spot. We have beauties with realistic figures and more striking mugs that do roam the streets of every city we settle in. They are the girl next door, and they do have style and flare. I’d say at least 1 out of 3 of my female desi girlfriends are stunning, more so than this lady. All the same, bravo to this add campaign for projecting a healthier beauty image.
I have been confused for looking human, even though I am clearly half vulcan half klingon.
This reminds me of the old pick up like that charm’s the ladies every time.
GUY: You have any Indian in you? Girl: No! GUY: You want some?
I keep checking Wikipedia…but George is still Irish. sigh Does anyone have any kind of lead as to who this girl is, though? Do modeling agencies in the US actively look for women like her? I wonder where they found her….
Coach, my assumption from the way sentences were written was that they were by someone who’s been studying Spanish for a while but hasn’t quite reached proficiency yet. I’d be the last one fight to the death over the Real Academia, but there’s gotta be some recognizeable foundation in any language, no? The way Jorge Ramos and Moonshadow speak may be quite different, at the edges, but at the core, we get what they’re saying because there’s certain basics that are the same.
…wouldn’t anyone who’s spoken Spanish in his/her home would say Uds. when adressing Sepia Mutineers, because we’re a group, not Ud.? And doesn’t “muda” seem like the product of someone taking the first Babelifish translation for “dumb” without looking at the meaning (“mute”, not “stupid”), and also, Colombian is “colombiana”, (as anyone who’s ever song along with “Boricua, morena, dominicana, colombiana…” two summers ago will recognize, though o.k., maybe it’s just a typo….)
And as for classist bullying, don’t people correct each other on technicalities here all the time? If el/la Rompeburbujas has been offended, then I apologize, de veras.
Kobayashi:
I want Sepia Mutiny to be a place where Victoria Secret models can feel comfortable discussing a wide range of topics without feeling put down, objectified, or devalued. A safe space.
Also, glad to hear I’m not the only racially ambiguous Indian! The number of times people have expected me to speak Spanish… And I can’t say more than “hola.” God forbid I ever try out my Hindi on this board – I’d be picked to shreads.
As for the young lady – I wonder if she had a “why me” moment when they chose her for the campaign, or if she was just devestatingly confident and approached it with an, “of course/it’s about time” attitude.
You’re right. It was a regretable comment. If there are any Victoria’s Secret models reading, I’d be happy to make it up to them.
Desishiksa, had a interesting flip on that situation in college.
Met up with a girlfriend in the cafeteria, where we claimed a table in anticipation of the rest of our friends joining us shortly. Along comes this guy, who we assumed was Indian, and he had the audacity to plunk himself down at “our” table. The two of us then commenced to complain to each other about him, in Spanish (what we had been speaking before he ever arrived), and of course, we were mortified when he finished his tea, got up to leave and said “Nos vemos” in perfectly accented Spanish, leaving us blushing and embarassed. Later, I got to know him, and it turned out he was………….. Peruvian.
And yes, I learned my lesson about not talking about those around you, in their presence.
Much better to wait until they’ve left! 😉
Anyone? Or is it just hip to hate Microsoft?
It’s hip to love free software. I use OpenOffice.
78 ShallowThinker..LMAO..I am so gonna use it someday
As for the current discussion..I hereby call her sUi8bLeGrrL2..I think the only person who can find who she is is my MOM..she found everybody else to hook me up wit.
Never underestimate a Mummeeee in search for a “homely” indian bride
What ever happened to the quest to find her identity? I’m surprised no one has the answer so far.
Free software is cool. Glad it works for you.
That woman looks hot to me. Am I the only straight guy who thinks fashion models appear somewhat freakish? I work in the fashion district in NYC and occasionally see unbearably skinny, tall model chicks with disproportionately large heads strolling down 7th Ave–they look like aliens. I can’t figure out how this became the standardized ideal of beauty in the fashion world, it seems to contradict everything I’ve read about how body shape (as an indication of fertility) correlates to how attracted males are to a woman. I think I read something once about how the hip/waist ratio as a signifier of fertility/attractiveness cut across many, if not all, ethnic groups.
That woman looks hot to me.
i heard that. but you wanna stop drinking that haterade?
I think she is pretty, and by that I mean average. Someone made a comment that South Indians only care about skin color and don’t care about features. That hasn’t been my experience at all. The person who made that comment – I’m curious, are you South Indian by any chance?
Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope!
ShalowThinker…that iz phunny.. I am sooo going to use it, even if it results in bodily injury caused by 4 inch heels 🙂
I am pretty dark but I’ve rarely felt unattractive among Indians. My experience has been in Kerala, that even though fair skin color is prized, my family is very concerned about features and I can’t say one goes above the other. Include that with money, education, family status and caste/religion (for some).
I’m not sure if this impression comes from caring relatives or friends of the family who’d never want to disparage me by negatively commenting on my skin color – whatever the reason I’ve always grown up with people (indians) saying they think I’m pretty. And I have heard from other Indians who were dark, that were treated badly b/c of their skin color – even treated badly by their family. I think Amma, the Kerala hugging guru, was treated like an outcaste by her family b/c she was dark. On the other hand I’ve heard punjabis say to me that punjabis are obsessed with skin color and they look at that above everything.
Regardless, I think that generalization of South India doesn’t hold.
desi cheapos and office 2k7? doesn’t go together. will be a perfect match in open office ad.
desi cheapos and office 2k7? doesn’t go together. will be a perfect match in open office ad. What’s wrong with OpenOffice? And what exactly does Office 2007 have to offer anyway? Groove? Shared Excel workspaces? Or, OMG, that new GUI. IMHO, it is a good way to waste money.
maybe, just maybe she is not desi after all…
Filmi,
I hear you on the language tip, which is why I said anglo trolling, the way an anglo might sound when posing as latino to troll, but could also be a Latino who grew up speaking Nuyorican Spanglish in the inner city and without much written Spanish experience, like myself. Lots of supposed poor grammar in there. (And the ‘you dumb people’ is certainly inflammatory like a troll, no? The smug ‘how do you know she’s desi?’ undertone reeks of a troll trying to turn an Anna thread, as so often happens here.)
I agree with you on the muda point and who the hell says columbina? Still, if language is going to be corrected, who is the corrector and by what authority? Who decides the foundation? Why is it that the way Spanish should be spoken is according to the upper class descendants of the colonizers? I get my Spanish and English corrected all the time and get told I sound ‘too ghetto, too street, uneducated, too black, etc’ both in Spanish and English. It gets irritating. This is a running debate in many Latino communities, and that’s why I linked to LatinaLista’s fine blogging about it.
I don’t see too much correction of English on this blog, only numbers and stats/demographics. I hear you on your reasoning, and I know I can get insane about this issue.
If you want to discuss it further, my blog and email are available. ANNA likes to keep a thread on topic and outta respect-well, you know…
I’m totally with this, that kind of behavior reeks of classism. Language is about the conveyance of ideas. Grammar too often devolves into the arbitrary imposition of irrelevant “rules” to that communication (and yes, I realize that some grammar is necessary for effective communication). Preach!